Mobilizing the Faithful

The conventional wisdom is that "moral values" were key to
George W. Bush's victory in the 2004 election. Indeed, Bush's
strategists made it a point to mobilize conservative Christian
voters, among whom a sizable proportion did not vote in 2000.

Just as labor unions are instrumental in rallying
Democratic-leaning voters, churches are also believed to be
instrumental in mobilizing Republican-leaning (and in the black
community, Democratic-leaning) voters. Mobilization efforts can be
subtle (a friend or family member encouraging someone to vote) or
more direct (an organized worker driving someone to the polls), and
public (candidate campaign rallies) or private (telephone calls).
Gallup's post-election panel survey attempted to find out to what
extent clergy made public and direct appeals to their congregations
in an attempt to activate voters in this year's election.

The survey, conducted from Nov. 3-Dec. 12*, involved
re-interviews with more than 1,000 respondents who originally took
part in Gallup's final pre-election survey. In addition to asking
about their voting experiences and the reasons behind their voting
decisions, the poll also asked respondents about their recent
churchgoing experiences, to see to what extent religion and
politics mixed.

Sixty-eight percent of panel respondents reported attending
church, synagogue, or other religious services in the past six
months, while 31% said they had not. Those who attended were asked
whether the priest, minister, or rabbi spoke favorably or
unfavorably about a specific presidential candidate at any of these
services. Eleven percent of religious service attendees said the
clergy member had spoken about a candidate, while the vast
majority, 87%, said the clergy member had not. Thus, it appears as
if presidential politics was not a common theme from the
pulpit.

(Asked of those who attended religious services in
the past six months:)At any of the services you
attended, did the priest, minister or rabbi talk favorably or
unfavorably about a specific presidential candidate, or
not?

Yes, did

No, did not

Noopinion

11%

87

2

Among the 11% who indicated a clergy member had spoken about
presidential candidates, more than half said the clergy member
stopped short of urging the congregation members to support a
particular candidate. Of the small minority of churchgoers who say
that the clergy member did urge members to vote for a candidate,
they were much more likely to say they were urged to vote for Bush
rather than Kerry.

Did the priest, minister or rabbi urge the members of the
congregation to vote for a specific presidential candidate, or not?
[Which one?]

2004 Nov 3-Dec 12

%

Yes, clergy spoke about candidates

11

(Did not urge vote for particular candidate)

(6)

(Urged vote for Kerry)

(1)

(Urged vote for Bush)

(4)

(Urged vote for other candidate)

(*)

No, clergy did not speak about candidates

87

No opinion

2

So while churchgoers were more likely to get a Bush appeal than
a Kerry appeal during a religious service, neither was apparently
common in U.S. houses of worship.

There were not any differences based on religious affiliation.
Protestants (10%) and Catholics (12%) were about equally likely to
say their minister or priest spoke about political candidates, and
in both groups, Bush appeals were more common than Kerry
appeals.

*These results are based on interviews conducted Nov. 3-Dec.
12 with 776 adults, aged 18 and older, who indicated they had
attended religious services in the past six months. For
results based on this sample, one can say with 95% confidence that
the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage
points.

Respondents were drawn from Gallup's larger panel survey of
1,148 adults who had initially participated in Gallup's final
national pre-election poll of Oct. 29-31, 2004. Re-interview
attempts were made with 1,567 respondents from that poll.

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